DNA polymerases replicate the genomes of living organisms. In addition to this central role in biology, DNA polymerases are also ubiquitous tools of biotechnology. They are widely used, e.g., for reverse transcription, amplification, labeling, and sequencing, all central technologies for a variety of applications such as nucleic acid sequencing, nucleic acid amplification, cloning, protein engineering, diagnostics, molecular medicine, and many other technologies.
Because of the significance of DNA polymerases, they have been extensively studied. This study has focused, e.g., on phylogenetic relationships among polymerases, structure of polymerases, structure-function features of polymerases, and the role of polymerases in DNA replication and other basic biology, as well as ways of using DNA polymerases in biotechnology. For a review of polymerases, see, e.g., Hiibscher et al. (2002) “Eukaryotic DNA Polymerases” Annual Review of Biochemistry Vol. 71: 133-163, Alba (2001) “Protein Family Review: Replicative DNA Polymerases” Genome Biology 2(1): reviews 3002.1-3002.4, Steitz (1999) “DNA polymerases: structural diversity and common mechanisms” J Biol Chem 274:17395-17398, and Burgers et al. (2001) “Eukaryotic DNA polymerases: proposal for a revised nomenclature” J Biol Chem. 276(47): 43487-90. Crystal structures have been solved for many polymerases, which often share a similar architecture. The basic mechanisms of action for many polymerases have been determined.
A fundamental application of DNA technology involves various labeling strategies for labeling a DNA that is produced by a DNA polymerase. This is useful in DNA sequencing, microarray technology, SNP detection, cloning, PCR analysis, and many other applications. Labeling is often performed in various post-synthesis hybridization or chemical labeling schemes, but DNA polymerases have also been used to directly incorporate various labeled nucleotides in a variety of applications, e.g., via nick translation, reverse transcription, random priming, amplification, the polymerase chain reaction, etc. See, e.g., Giller et al. (2003) “Incorporation of reporter molecule-labeled nucleotides by DNA polymerases. I. Chemical synthesis of various reporter group-labeled 2′-deoxyribonucleoside-5′-triphosphates” Nucleic Acids Res. 31(10): 2630-2635, Augustin et al. (2001) “Progress towards single-molecule sequencing: enzymatic synthesis of nucleotide-specifically labeled DNA” J. Biotechnol. 86:289-301, Tonon et al. (2000) “Spectral karyotyping combined with locus-specific FISH simultaneously defines genes and chromosomes involved in chromosomal translocations” Genes Chromosom. Cancer 27:418-423, Zhu and Waggoner (1997) “Molecular mechanism controlling the incorporation of fluorescent nucleotides into DNA by PCR.” Cytometry, 28:206-211, Yu et al. (1994) “Cyanine dye dUTP analogs for enzymatic labeling of DNA probes” Nucleic Acids Res., 22:3226-3232, Zhu et al. (1994) “Directly labeled DNA probes using fluorescent nucleotides with different length linkers” Nucleic Acids Res. 22:3418-3422, and Reid et al. (1992) “Simultaneous visualization of seven different DNA probes by in situ hybridization using combinatorial fluorescence and digital imaging microscopy” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 89:1388-1392.
DNA polymerase mutants have been identified that have a variety of useful properties, including altered nucleotide analog incorporation abilities relative to wild-type counterpart enzymes. For example, VentA488L DNA polymerase can incorporate certain non-standard nucleotides with a higher efficiency than native Vent DNA polymerase. See Gardner et al. (2004) “Comparative Kinetics of Nucleotide Analog Incorporation by Vent DNA Polymerase” J. Biol. Chem., 279(12), 11834-11842 and Gardner and Jack “Determinants of nucleotide sugar recognition in an archaeon DNA polymerase” Nucleic Acids Research, 27(12) 2545-2553. The altered residue in this mutant, A488, is predicted to be facing away from the nucleotide binding site of the enzyme. The pattern of relaxed specificity at this position roughly correlates with the size of the substituted amino acid side chain and affects incorporation by the enzyme of a variety of modified nucleotide sugars.
Additional modified polymerases, e.g., modified polymerases that display improved properties useful for single molecule sequencing (SMS) and other polymerase applications (e.g., DNA amplification, sequencing, labeling, detection, cloning, etc.), are desirable. The present invention provides new DNA polymerases with improved kinetic properties including reduced branching fraction formation, increased stability of closed polymerase-DNA complexes and increased processivity, and reduced rates for one or more steps in the catalytic cycle. Also included are methods of making such polymerases, methods of using such polymerases, and many other features that will become apparent upon a complete review of the following.